In the early twentieth century, the National novelists of Haiti sought to recuperate the image of their nation and the black race in their works. Their representations of black women were an essential part of this agenda, as they explored such issues as black women's looks, their social status and mobility, and their relationships with men of diverse classes and races. In this sense the National novelists were among Haiti's first nationalist and feminist writers.

French women writing from 1790 to 1825 responded to uprisings in Haiti in 1791 by contextualizing violence in relation to the horrors of slavery. The juxtaposition of "Black" and "Terror" echoes the similar juxtaposition in The Black Jacobins, which the Trinidadian writer C. L. R. James published in 1938. The writers considered are Germaine de Staël, Olympe de Gouges, Claire de Duras, and Sophie Doin.